The Paris Treaty set up the European Coal and Steel Community - the first of the European communities which would ultimately result in the European Union.

It was the result of a post-war project to prevent the outbreak of further conflict.

Jean Monnet had been commissioned by French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman with finding a solution to the reintegration of Western Germany into Europe after the Second World War.

Monnet's innovative proposal was to pool the French and German coal and steel industries to prevent the two countries going to war again.

"The pooling of coal and steel production...will change the destinies of those regions which have long been devoted to the manufacture of munitions of war, of which they have been the most constant victims...

"Any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible," said Robert Schuman in his 1950 declaration which formed the basis for the Paris Treaty.

The Treaty was signed a year later by France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, starting Europe on the road to integration.